Some breathtaking tries were witnessed at North Field, National Sports Centre, on Saturday when Bermuda ran out 67-32 winners over Cayman Islands in an international friendly rugby match.

Najeé Pitt-Clarke led the scoring with a hat-trick of tries, Cat Morris and Heidi Groves had a brace apiece, while captain Lysmeiri Santana, Camille Chin-Gurret, Sarah Cross and Akila Craig all crossed the whitewash once.

Pitt-Clarke, who was carrying an ankle injury going into the encounter, showed no discomfort when putting Bermuda ahead with a burst of speed to score a try right at the start of the match.

“I’m very excited to contribute to the team’s victory,” Pitt-Clarke told The Royal Gazette.

“ I know my bare minimum is definitely a hat-trick. I was going for four, but I have a severe ankle sprain at the moment. I still decided to play and it didn’t seem to stop me.

“I was happy to join a few of my other team-mates who are coming from the United States and also the UK. Alexia Hurdle, Sarah Cross and Nisaiah Berkeley, they all did very well and so did the whole team, I’m very proud to play with them.”

Groves attributed the success to players completing each other’s abilities by working as a close unit.

“As a player who has been around for a couple of years now, I’m really proud of the team,” she said.

“We’re all individually skilled, but when we come together, we have a great chemistry, so I think that really worked in our favour today.

“Obviously, being on our home turf, we wanted to make our country proud and I think we did that with a landslide win.

“It feels great to be on the scoreboard, also kicking my own conversion after scoring a try as I’m not usually a kicker.

“It’s a friendly rivalry that we have with the Cayman team. It means a lot for them to travel down here to play us, considering that they were probably a bit more fatigued than us due to travel and not being on their home soil.

“But it was great fun, very friendly and competitive. We put our best foot forward and got the win.”

For Santana, the match against Cayman served as great preparation for the Rugby Americas North competition at the end of the year.

“It feels really good to get the victory,” the Bermuda team leader said.

“We wanted to come out tops and we did just that. We had a really good solid team and this is just the start to get us ready for Rugby Americas North in November.

“Even when we were tired, we really worked as a team, we supported each other and didn’t let each other down.

“We definitely need to work on our defence, getting lower in the tackles and maintaining good defensive shape. I think in attack, we were really good, but defence we’ve just got to work a little bit harder.

Cayman captain Zororo Mutomba credited former England international Mercedes Foy for creating strong women’s rugby structures in that country.

“The result today wasn’t exactly where we wanted it to be, but we’ll go back to the drawing board,” she said.

“We’re getting back into test match rugby and hopefully this Christmas we’re going to be playing Trinidad in a fifteens match.

“I think from now until then, we have a few things to go back and look at. But again, we're progressing in a positive direction, so I’m very hopeful for that game.

“We have a vibrant women’s rugby programme in Cayman. I think in the last five years, Mercedes Foy, our female rugby manager, has really dug in and really gone out as the community and built her programme.

“So we have seen a big boom in growth in Cayman Islands rugby and it’s not all thanks to Mercedes. She has done such a great job and so many volunteer coaches have come on to help.”